


Where to, Cas?

by FairyRose11



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode: s09e06 Heaven Can't Wait, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-03
Updated: 2015-03-03
Packaged: 2018-03-16 02:16:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3470645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FairyRose11/pseuds/FairyRose11
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My take on what happens during the "gap scene" in 9X6. Reminiscing, hotel awkwardness, and some emotional conversation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where to, Cas?

Dean did not know how to tell his friend that he would never go home.

How exactly, he wondered, were you supposed to tell someone a thing like that? Not that Dean even knew anything about it. Over thirty years, and he hadn’t found any homes, just hotel rooms. The bunker, he figured, was as good as it got. 

Dean didn’t know which one would hit Cas harder: that he was never going to make it back to Heaven, or that every single other angel was screwed, and it was all Cas’ fault, and apparently there was no fixing it. Knowing Castiel, it was probably the second one that would sting more than anything. 

In the seat next to him, Cas cleared his throat. “So, I take it you managed to dispose of Ephraim’s body?”

One of these days, it’d be nice to have a normal conversation, Dean thought halfheartedly. “Um, yeah. So uh, you didn’t answer. Where to, man?” 

Cas thought about it for a moment. “The Gas-N-Sip opens at five tomorrow morning. I need to be there.”

Dean wanted to argue, to say that Cas didn’t need to while his days away at a freaking convenience store. After everything, Cas deserved more than that. Dean wanted badly to say to Cas that it’d all been a mistake, really, that they were heading back to the bunker right now. Together. And they’d sort out the angel problem, and that would work out just fine and dandy too. Except Cas wouldn’t believe it, because things never happened that way.

And he couldn’t come to the bunker, because damn it, Sammy always had to come first. 

“Okay. Anywhere you wanna go before then? It’s early.” Dean paused, then added. “Sorry about your date, by the way.” The woman was, as far as Dean was concerned, an idiot. Cas might have been a dorky little guy, but he was Dean’s friend, and that mean that righteous indignation was required in situations like this. 

“That’s okay. I’m not sure I’m the dating type anyway.”

“Well, never give up, Mr. Cynicism.”

An awkward pause followed. Cas broke it with “You could just drive me back to the Gas-N-Sip now. I’m sure you have work you need to get back to.” 

Dean couldn’t help feeling… disappointed. It wasn’t like he and Cas got many chances to just hang out. And yeah, he was a little worried too. Ephraim had gone after Cas, and while the latter had tried to play it off as vengeance for the angel’s fall, Dean didn’t really think that was what had happened. Rit Zien put people out of their misery, Cas had said. Which mean that Cas obviously was unhappy, for all of his grand proclamations of how great it was being Steve the sales associate. 

“Actually, I’ve got nothing. No other cases going on right now, so I’m pretty much footloose and fancy free right now. Now come on, do you wanna go back to the motel for some shut eye, go get some burgers, pick up some chicks, or what?” 

“I’d like to stop at the park,” Cas said, and Dean could have sworn there was a flicker of amusement in the ex-angel’s eyes. “There’s a nice one near here, with a pond. Unless of course, you find nature to be too dull.” 

“Nope,” Dean said, and he pretended that Cas’ tiny smirk didn’t make him happy. 

 

The park, as parks go, was nice. Lots of trees. Cas wasted no time in snagging a bench right near the aforementioned pond. Dean sat next to him, wondering if Cas was actually trying to make some sort of point, or he just really liked trees. It’d make sense that human Cas would be a hippie nature nut. 

Cas leaned back, and glanced at Dean. “I come here sometimes, after my shift is over. I find it… peaceful, after all of the customers.” 

Dean nodded. “It’s nice.” 

“Being here reminds me of the first time I came to Earth. There weren’t any humans, almost no creatures at all, really. Just fish. I was only a child in angel terms, and it was the first time that I was truly made aware of something beyond Heaven.” He paused. “Of course I couldn’t have anticipated that a few million years later there would be things like vehicles, or packaged food… or television, for that matter. Believe me, Dean, if you had tried to explain television to angels back then, they would have considered it a lie or an abomination.” 

Cas chuckled, and so did Dean. Still, Dean realized that he knew next to nothing about Castiel’s life. Cas knew everything about Dean, about Sam and the demon blood, Mary and her death, John and his crusade, Hell and all of its horrors. Cas had lived so much longer than Dean, longer than almost every other type of creature, including demons. He’d had experiences that Dean could barely even fathom, and even so, Dean hadn’t ever asked about Cas’ past. If he was brutally honest with himself, he knew that he hadn’t cared enough to ask. 

“First time I’ve really heard you talk about your old life,” Dean prompted, and when Cas did not take the hint, Dean added “Wanna tell me more?” 

And so they spent the next couple of hours like that, with Cas telling Dean as many stories as he could remember. Which, as it turned out, was a lot. 

“Seriously, pirates? You met pirates?” 

“Briefly. One of them was a fallen angel from my garrison who needed to be caught and punished, so yes, I took a vessel and spent a day in the company of pirates.”

“Dude, not fair. What were they like? Did they have the talking parrots and eyepatches?”

Cas considered for a moment. “I do think one of them had an eyepatch, yes.”

“Awesome.” 

They lapsed into silence again. Dean tried to think of a good way to ask Cas exactly what had happened with Ephraim. So far his mind was coming up blank. Igniting emotional conversations had always been Sam’s area. 

“It’s getting late,” Cas told him. “We should probably head back.”

“Uh, yeah,” Dean said quickly. “I think I saw a motel a while back--didn’t look like a total crapsack, and they had vacancies, so let’s get going.”

 

When they arrived, Cas didn’t seem to know what to do with himself. 

“Thank you for paying for me, Dean.” Cas sat on the bed closest to the door. Dean wondered if that was so Cas could bolt in the middle of the night, if he needed to. 

“No problem,” Dean told him, trying to sound lighthearted. Cas smiled at him, then stood up and began removing his clothes.

“Wait, what the hell are you doing?” Dean asked, voice mildly horrified. Cas gave him the same sort of look as earlier that day, the “You’re an idiot” look. 

“I’m going to take a shower.”  
“Well, dudes don’t usually take off their clothes in front of each other. Like, at all.”

Cas frowned, slightly chagrined to have slipped up in his new human behavior. “Good to know,” he informed Dean, before disappearing into the bathroom. Dean lay down on his bed, heart racing, though he wasn’t quite sure why. Embarrassment, probably. You really needed to explain things to Cas, just lay them out plain in front of him. No wonder he was having a rough time as human, bumbling through it all alone.

The guilt, and shame, emotions that always seemed to be close to the surface of Dean’s skin welled up. He’d left Cas with nothing more than some borrowed money and a fake I.D. No instructions, no advice. He’d told Cas that he could call any time, but Dean had been worried that Cas wouldn’t take him up on the offer. The guy was turned away by one of the few people he considered to be a friend; Dean wouldn’t have blamed Cas if he’d been bitter. However, it seemed that bitterness was not Castiel’s way. He wasn’t angry, just sad. And Dean didn’t know how to fix it any more than he knew how to put the angels back in Heaven.

Cas exited the shower a few minutes later, dressed in that same outfit, toweling his hair dry. He got into bed while Dean brushed his teeth. When Dean lay down in his own bed, Cas turned off the lights.

Dean had spent a thousand nights sharing a motel room with Sam, but it felt different with Cas. Less casual. 

“I still find sleeping to be very strange,” Cas said quietly. “Dreaming even more so. I was aware of course, of the images that the unconscious mind conjures, but actually experiencing it is another matter.” 

Dean wondered if Cas meant that in a good way, or a bad way. Probably in a bad way. All hunters had nightmares; it came with the territory. Dean barely noticed his own anymore. 

It was now or never. Past midnight; Cas would be asleep soon, and they’d be heading back to the Gas-N-Sip first thing in the morning. Dean had to ask.

“Cas?” 

“Yes, Dean?”

Dean rolled over on his side, so he was looking at Cas. “You told me that the Rit Zien only killed people who were in pain. They basically put poor sons of bitches out of their misery.”

Cas was silent for a moment, before saying “Yes, that’s true.”

“And this guy… Ephraim, he took it too far, obviously. He couldn’t tell the difference between real suffering and plain old unhappy. But still… he came after you, Cas. He tried to smite you. So, all that stuff you said, about having a new purpose, getting used to this life… I’m thinking you were just covering up. What do you say?”

Dean might have thought that Cas had fallen asleep, except for the fact that Cas was lying much too stiffly to actually be asleep. Finally, he murmured “What do you want me to say, Dean? Yes, it’s hard, and painful. There are so many things I don’t know about being human, and I just… I’m trying. My job, my new life, might not seem like very much to you, but they’re things I achieved. On my own,” he added, and Dean knew that Cas had stuck on the last three words for his benefit.

“I’m sorry,” Dean said, because there was nothing else to be said. “That I can’t help you. Believe me, I want to, and I would--”

“I know, Dean,” Cas replied tiredly. “There are innumerable angels who want me dead. I’m a liability.”

No, you’re not. And even if you are, I don’t care, because you’re family. Family takes care of each other, no matter what you’ve done. But Dean couldn’t say that, because it would just open up a vein for questions that he couldn’t answer. 

So he lay back, and tried not to feel like the world’s biggest failure. 

 

And now, the next day, when he leaves Cas at the Gas-N-Sip, the only thing he can think to say is “I’m proud of you.” When he was a kid, all Dean had wanted was to hear those words from his dad. That hadn’t happened often. So, when he says this to Cas, he is offering up the best compliment he can give. 

Dean only hopes that it is enough.


End file.
